Chapter 10 - The Man in the Gray Coat
The figure standing beneath the moonlight in the brick-lined chamber turned slowly around, revealing a face lined with deep scars and sharp, calculating eyes. He wore a heavy gray coat, and his left hand was wrapped tightly in white medical gauze—the exact man Lucas had described upstairs in the banquet hall.
Julian immediately stepped in front of Clara and the twins, raising his firearm with a lethal, steady grip, his tattoos rippling across his broad shoulders.
"Don't take another step," Julian warned, his voice echoing menacingly off the damp brick walls. "Turn around and put your hands where I can see them, or I drop you right where you stand."
The man in the gray coat didn't flinch. Instead, a faint, humorless smile touched the corners of his scarred lips as he slowly raised his bandaged hand in a placating gesture.
"Put the gun down, Julian," the man said, his voice raspy and carrying an accent that belonged to the old Eastern European underground. "If I wanted you dead, that flashback in the junction would have been packed with high explosives instead of flash powder. You're alive right now solely because I chose to let you breathe."
Clara stepped out from behind Julian’s broad shoulder, her dark eyes flashing with a desperate defiance.
"Who are you?" Clara demanded, her voice cutting sharply through the damp air. "Why are these people hunting us? What do you want from my family?"
The man in the gray coat shifted his gaze from Julian to Clara, his expression softening slightly with a strange, melancholic reverence.
"Mrs. Sterling," the man acknowledged with a slight nod of his head. "I am Viktor. And I am not here to hunt you. I am the only reason your husband hasn't been executed for treason by the syndicate he betrayed five years ago."
Julian’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as he kept his weapon locked on Viktor’s chest.
"Viktor was my commanding officer before he sold out to the highest bidder in Geneva," Julian snarled, his finger tightening slightly on the trigger. "He doesn't offer protection, Clara. He offers a bullet with your name on it wrapped in a polite conversation."
Viktor let out a dry, raspy chuckle, reaching slowly inside his heavy gray coat.
"Is that what you told her, Julian?" Viktor asked, pulling out a thick manila folder stamped with a red confidential seal. "Did you tell her about the Swiss bank accounts? Did you tell her that the syndicate isn't chasing you because you stole their ledger, but because you embezzled forty million dollars of their operational funds to fund your new suburban life?"
Clara froze instantly, the blood draining completely from her face as she turned her head slowly to stare up at Julian in absolute horror.
"Is that true?" Clara whispered, her voice cracking as the devastating betrayal settled over her. "Forty million dollars? Julian, look at me and tell me he's lying."
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Julian stared at Clara, his jaw locking tight as a heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the underground chamber. Before Julian could utter a single word of defense, the heavy iron grate overhead suddenly shattered inward in a shower of rusted iron and flying glass.
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